Why We Emphasize SEO for Google Over Other Search Engines

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When we talk about search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) in classes, webinars, and blogs, florists often ask us why we emphasize optimizing websites and online advertising to Google. What about Bing, Yahoo, AOL and others? Are they still relevant? Quite simply, the answer is not really.

We understand there is not much free time in a flower shop, so our goal is to make the best possible recommendations to help you focus your efforts on the most effective channels. In this case, it's purely a data-driven decision of which search engine has the largest market share: Google.

Dominant on the Desktop

The following graph is from https://www.netmarketshare.com for the month of June 2017 -- the absolute latest data.

Desktop search engine market share for the month of June 2017 from netmarketshare.com.

As you can see, Google dominates the market with close to 80 percent share. Lagging far behind is the next closest competitor, Microsoft's Bing at 7.31 percent. Google's dominance was in question about the same time last year (July-August 2016) when Bing crept up to more than 10 percent and Google drop to 71 percent, but Google recouped the loss since and hasn't looked back. In fact, since last year, Google was the only search engine to gain market share... and the trend says we all need to pay attention to Google search.

Massive on Mobile

If you thought Google dominates desktop usage, the company absolutely destroys the competition on mobile devices. Our next graph from netmarketshare.com is a snapshot of mobile search market share for June 2017.

Desktop search engine market share for the month of June 2017 from netmarketshare.com.

96.17 percent says it all, with the next closest competitor at 1.39 percent! This set of statistics makes it pretty clear that florists need to pay more attention to mobile market share as more of their customers are using their mobile devices to find businesses vs their desktop or laptop computers -- check your Google Analytics, and we'll bet they'll tell the same story.

Now you know why we when talk search, we usually talk Google. However, if a massive shift in market share happens (we highly doubt it will, but you never know), you can trust we'll be the first to let you know and adjust our coverage accordingly.